"A?!" Qiwei's eyes widened.
Then, she witnessed a scene straight out of a horror movie.
The lights in the entire black Sex Doll Shop began to flicker as though they had a poor connection. Simultaneously, the security guards inside the shop started screaming in unison as if in a chorus.
"Ah!! Aaahhh!"
Screams echoed everywhere, electrical sparks bursting, each sound mingling with another scream.
"There's a hacker! A hacker! Disconnect! Don't connect to the server... ahhhhhh!"
Someone yelled a warning, but Mercer had already completely seized control of the server's access. At this moment, everyone connected to the server's subnetwork had become a target for his Sorcery Puppet Virus program.
Besides Qiwei and the other pitiable sex dolls, even those possibly 'innocent' customers were among Mercer's targets.
Because all the sex dolls here were purchased, Mercer pitied Qiwei, and naturally, he sympathized with the other unfortunate girls too.
Some of them were sold by human traffickers, while others were sold by their own parents or relatives and friends—they were just chunks of rotten flesh purchased by the shop, treated as money-making machines by the local gang.
"Help me... help me..."
A man in a suit reached out from one side of the hallway, and the next moment, his prosthetic arm convulsed, unable to move any further.
Mercer's cold and murderous voice sounded in Qiwei's ear.
"Recognize him? Your boss... I deliberately left him for you. Go ahead, this is for you, but hurry up...
Someone reported it before dying, and Internet Supervision and the NCPD could come soon. Don't worry, it won't implicate you.
Happy revenge."
Mercer's voice vanished.
Only the man in the suit remained, his eyes wide open, unable to make his body obey him no matter what.
Qiwei's breathing was incredibly heavy as she trembled and walked forward, lowering her head to look down upon this man who in the past was high and mighty, treating the sex dolls with either beatings or curses, granting life or death.
"Save... me... Qiwei... help me... shut... shut it down..."
His throat emitted muddled cries for help.
Qiwei's breathing grew even heavier, like a lioness about to roar, but in the end, she merely extended her hand with cold eyes.
She took the pistol from the man's waist, then aimed it at his head—thud!
Qiwei didn't choose to pull the trigger; instead, she smashed his head repeatedly with the gun handle, once, twice... ten times, fifteen times!
Not until the man's head was beaten into a bloody mess did she stop, gasping for breath, her eyes unknowingly filled with tears, making her vision somewhat blurry.
Her hand trembled as she aimed the gun at the man's dead body, pulling the trigger several times before stumbling out of the Sex Doll Shop at a run.
At this moment, the black Sex Doll Shop seemed to have turned into a living hell—Qiwei could see, as a hacker, the signals within the network clearly through her prosthetic eye.
Now, the data surging in the network was ferocious as a tide, invisible giant waves underpinned by the server's computing power surged toward every person connected to the subnetwork.
The electric lights connected to the network exploded from overloaded electricity, and the neon lights flickered a few times before losing their glow, yet Qiwei ran single-mindedly.
She ran, taking the Sex Doll Chip from around her neck while forcefully throwing it in front of her, crushing the symbol of bondage and monitoring underfoot as she passed.
She raced to the automatic door that was usually locked, not allowing the sex dolls to pass through.
The automatic door had already been forcibly opened, and outside, in the dark alley, the lights remained on.
Qiwei's mind was vaguely blank; she felt as though she had thought a lot yet seemed to have thought of nothing at all, merely running, running as she hadn't in so long.
Soon after, the Sex Doll Shop behind her caught fire, Mercer having overloaded all the electrical appliances and the server, causing the machine room to start burning.
The alley's stench grew distant, and when she came to, she had reached a somewhat unfamiliar street.
At this moment, she was gasping for air, bewilderedly looking back.
The black Sex Doll Shop had long vanished from her sight.
Only sparse traffic flowed on the street beside her, some pedestrians curiously yet warily eyeing this brightly dressed girl who wore only one shoe but held a pistol tightly in her hand.
Qiwei's hands trembled slightly as she tentatively spoke in a weak voice: "A?"
"I'm here."
Mercer's voice remained calm.
"Where... where should I go next?"
Qiwei looked around, the December evening breeze making her instinctively hug her arms tightly.
"Do you have any money?" Mercer asked first.
"I... I don't have a bank account, they always paid me in cash. Damn it, I forgot to grab the money."
Qiwei said, now realizing her mistake and beginning to regret it—she had forgotten to take any money from the shop!
Even pulling out that manager's personal chip and taking some money from the virtual wallet would've been fine.
"Never mind if you didn't, the NCPD has already swarmed there; I made quite a scene."
Mercer thought for a moment and suggested, "I know someone, she's a good person... letting you stay a few days shouldn't be too big of a problem.
Just find a place to wait for now, I'll have her drive over to pick you up.
"Or do you have any other trustworthy friends?"
Qiwei instinctively replied, "I have no friends."
"Well, now you have one—her name is V, a good girl you can trust. She's about half an hour's drive from you. Just find a place to stay for now."
As Mercer's words fell, he chuckled softly, "We'll chat later, Internet Supervision is here. I need to focus and give them a little dance. Let's see what these network overseers are capable of."
Qiwei didn't know what mindset she was in, but she actually replied, "They're not to be trifled with, be careful…"
Mercer replied with an emoji, and then disconnected the voice communication.
Qiwei, in a daze, found a railing to lean against. Until now, everything that had just happened still felt like a dream.
She looked up at the starry sky. Stars she hadn't seen in a long time didn't conspicuously shine today. The bright moon loomed behind clouds, yet in her eyes, it was the most beautiful night sky she had seen in recent years.
Until an old Canary 'Gecko' car drove up from the street.
A white-haired, beautiful-faced woman with a carefree vibe rolled down the window.
"Hey, are you Qiwei? Get in the car, I'm V."
Qiwei didn't hesitate this time. She walked over and opened the passenger door, "It's me... Hello, V."
"I'm actually not doing well." V said with a face full of frustration, "Woken up at 2 AM to be someone's driver... I heard about your situation from A, don't worry, you'll stay at my place for a few days."
"Thank you." Qiwei said awkwardly—she wasn't good at thanking people.
V glanced at her and laughed, then looked at Qiwei's worn-out yet still beautiful face, suddenly feeling gossipy, "How did you and A meet? He actually gave me 1,000 Euros just to babysit you for a few days?"
Qiwei fell silent for a moment before honestly saying, "I don't know him."
"Huh?" V was momentarily stunned, then uttered an 'oh', assuming she'd figured it out, "So, you're the client?"
"Is he a mercenary?" Qiwei had heard stories about the Edgerunners before. To her, they were just a bunch of mercenaries who risk their lives for money.
She couldn't imagine someone like A, who spoke so much about justice, could be part of that group.
"…you don't know? Uh, I guess he is, he's even trying to recruit me." V said uncertainly, as Mercer remained quite a mystery to her.
All she knew was that he was someone who could walk into Rebirth and chat effortlessly with Rogue. His whole body was so full of cybermods that even her prosthetic eye couldn't scan its model, his hacking skills top-notch, and his physical prowess not lacking either.
His background, age, even appearance—V knew nothing, except his real name might be Mercer.
"I see... I don't know him." Qiwei looked at V's handsome profile, suddenly thinking—could it be that A simply liked pretty women?
Such a reason probably made more sense than anything about kindness.
"He suddenly hacked into my program, asked if I wanted freedom...and said if I sincerely begged him, he would help me.
I tried it, and he helped me escape from the sex doll shop.
The cost was for me to pay him 50,000 Euros in installments later."
Qiwei finished speaking, and V widened her eyes, "Fifty thousand, wow, that much?"
"Is it a lot?" Qiwei just gave a self-mocking smile, "Indeed, such an amount is already enough to buy a living woman for a lifetime."
Qiwei let out a long breath and softly asked, "Do you mind if I smoke?"
"Smoke all you want, but there's no ashtray, so just open the window." V said.
"Thanks, V." Qiwei suddenly found that thanking people didn't seem so difficult after all.
She raised her head, lit a lady's cigarette, and with the night breeze blowing through her short hair, watched the neon lights outside the window, her heart still full of confusion and bewilderment.
And V curiously asked, "Were you sold there? Otherwise, it doesn't really count as a rescue…"
"Mm." Qiwei temporarily didn't want to talk more about these matters she considered as her shame and scars.
"So what will you do in the future? I mean, you can't be a sex doll again, right?"
V was purely driving out of boredom and feeling a bit sleepy—it was almost 3 AM when she drove over.
And Qiwei, after a moment of silence, suddenly smiled, "I don't know."
Thinking back now, she suddenly realized that her life had already been set when her parents sold her to a factory at a young age.
In the factory, a foreman controlled her, requiring that she work on time every day, all year round. Because if she wanted to quit, she'd have to repay the factory's huge 'buyout fee' first.
And until the foreman, after multiple unsuccessful attempts to 'date' her, got angry and sold her into a sex doll shop, her daily life turned into another unimaginable hell.
24 hours a day, as long as there was demand, she had to work. Even if she received some so-called 'reward,' there was no real chance for freedom.
Because this time, the buyout fee was an astonishing 100,000 Euros—how could a sex doll, whose food, clothes, housing, even the mandatory sex doll chip she had to wear were costed, ever accumulate 100,000 Euros to regain freedom?
She spent a year self-learning hacker programs and saved money for a year to secretly buy a Network Access Vault, then treated hacking skills as a lifeline.
Every day she fantasized about freedom, fantasized about one day using hacking skills to take revenge on the scumbags who manipulated and enslaved her life.
However...
Freedom came so suddenly.
What to do in the future?
In her life, Qiwei could finally consider this question for the first time.